The Lighthouse Keeper
by perfectlyrose
Summary: It was a storm that brought her to the island—a mere whim of waves and wind and fate that directed her tiny boat and battered soul towards a half-forgotten shore guarded by a lighthouse and the broken man who was its keeper. (Nine/Rose AU)


prompted by the lovely asthewheelwills on tumblr and based on the song "The Lighthouse's Tale" by Nickel Creek.

I shouldn't be allowed near angst-inducing songs, I'm sorry.

[major character death warnings in play here. also mentions of past abuse and suicidal thoughts]

* * *

It was a storm that brought her to the island—a mere whim of waves and wind and fate that directed her tiny boat and battered soul towards a half-forgotten shore guarded by a lighthouse that shone its beacon bravely into the dark and through the downpour to guide wayward sailors upon the sea.

She was no sailor, just a passenger on a directionless boat that entrusted herself to the capricious sea, but the lighthouse guided her all the same. A single beam of light that was a shard of hope and promise of safe haven, things that her heart desperately clung to as the waves tossed her around, bringing her closer to shore and closer to the rocks that could spell her death.

The keeper of the lighthouse, the sole occupant of the insignificant island on which it stood, caught sight of the small boat struggling towards shore just as it smashed to pieces on the rocks. Not stopping to throw on a coat or shoes, he set off for the shore at a dead run hoping there would still be someone able to be saved when he got there. There had to be, he couldn't let himself think that the universe would give him a chance to save someone, a chance to atone for some of his sins, just to throw it in his face.

(He knew it was exactly the kind of thing the universe did, especially to him, but as he grew closer to the shore, scanning anxiously for the boat's passenger in the angry water, he tried to hope things would be different this time.)

It was impossible to see anything as the storm raged around him, uncaring of the damage it wrought. A flash of lightning, followed immediately by a vicious clap of thunder, lit up the beach just long enough for his eyes to alight on the petite body just washed onto the sand.

He rushed towards her, pulling her away from the insistent tug of the waves that were lapping at her waist and trying to claim her for the sea for the rest of eternity. With the woman's slight frame weighing him down, the lighthouse keeper made for the safety and warmth of his home inside the beacon that had called her to his shore as fast as he was able.

Above them, the lighthouse continued its ceaseless battle to send a ray of light into the impenetrable darkness pressing into the island, trying to beat it back for just a little while longer.

The keeper carefully dried the blonde woman he'd saved, placing her next to the fire to try and alleviate the effects of the bitterly cold December water. Half an hour passed and he was dressed in a dry set of clothes and sitting next to the shipwrecked waif whose lips were no longer blue and was no longer shivering violently.

Her eyes fluttered open and found his own. Warm brown met icy blue and buried in blankets after being saved from the sea, Rose Tyler met John Smith.

They talked as the fire burned down next to them, discussing everything and nothing.

He did not ask about the bruises around her wrists and throat that obviously did not come from her shipwreck.

She did not ask about the scars littering his hands or the ones lurking behind his eyes.

The storm passed, as did the days, and they grew closer as Rose determined that she wished to stay on the island and tend the lighthouse with John.

He taught her about life on his, their, little island. She taught him the meaning of resilience and the fragile strength of hope.

She hid from the man who monthly brought groceries to the island for the first three months.

(He did not ask why because he remembered the bruises from that first night all too well and knew how she still sometimes jumped when he made sudden movements.)

(He did not tell her that the grocer's delivery man and likely most of the village on the mainland knew she was there since he'd doubled the grocery order after her arrival.)

Sometimes he did not talk for days and leaned out a little too far over the top railing of the lighthouse, stared at the tumultuous ocean for a little bit too long.

(She did not ask why because she understood the urge all too well and knew that sometimes whatever demons haunted him caused him to wake up screaming in the middle of the night.)

(She did not tell him that she had nightmares too.)

They were both broken, but together they took the shattered pieces of their individual selves and tentatively began building a shared future.

They talked about all the places he had travelled to when he was younger and driven by intense wanderlust, back before he had taken up lighthouse keeping on the island that had belonged to his family for time untold.

Just like they did not talk about why Rose had run, they did not talk about why John had stopped running. The future they were building was not dependent on their pasts—they would not let it be.

One day they were out on the top balcony of their lighthouse to watch the sun sink beneath the waves. Rose was wrapped in his leather jacket to ward off the first chill of autumn and leaning against the railing, back to where the sun was just touching the horizon and painting the world gold. Her face was lit with a smile as bright as the lighthouse was in the night and John thought she had never looked more beautiful.

He had never been more in love with her than he was in that instant.

They kissed as the sun continued its descent and the air grew colder, not noticing the chill or the way the brilliant gold of the sunset faded into shades of pastel and smoke.

The lighthouse seemed to shine brighter than it ever had before that night as its two occupants explored each other's bodies for the first time.

Rose had become John's light. Her smile and her strength shone into the dark night of his soul and guided him to her arms—the only place that had ever truly felt like home.

John had become Rose's inspiration. With his love that was as constant as the tides and the passing of time, she learned to believe in herself. With his hand in hers she felt like she could take on anything the world could throw at her and come out better and stronger than before.

There were still nightmares for each of them but when they woke in the arms of their lover, the power of their ghosts was diminished.

Neither of them had ever been happier and they were so wrapped up in their bubble of joy and love that they were blinded to the approach of winter and the accompanying darkness that started to descend on their island once more.

It was December again, a week after the first anniversary of when John and Rose met, when the grocer's delivery boy brought them news of an arrest in town. It was assault, he said, domestic abuse on top of that.

Rose paled and rubbed absently at her wrist while asking for the name.

When it was given, she turned her face into John's chest and let him support her as she tried not to fall apart.

John sent the grocer's boy on his way and led Rose to their room. It was not the first time he had seen her cry but it broke his heart just the same because he could not fix this for her. His anger at the person who had hurt her, who had apparently moved on to hurt someone else after she escaped, would do no one any good.

That night as they lay in bed, she told him she had to go back, had to make sure the other woman knew she was not alone and that the man who had hurt them both paid for his crimes.

He offered to go with her, of course he did, but she said it was something she had to do on her own.

That night they made love, slow and sweet and tried to pretend that it did not feel like goodbye.

(She had told him that she was staying with him forever, had promised this, and she reminded him of this promise in broken whispers when neither of them could sleep.)

The next morning she set off in the small boat they kept and although John had never been a praying man, he sent up a plea to any deity that might be listening that she would return to him safely.

Four days passed and John kept vigil on the balcony of the lighthouse, waiting to spot her boat drifting towards him, towards home.

That evening, he could not contain his grin when finally saw her outlined against the setting sun as she tried to beat the darkness home.

That grin slipped from his face when he saw the storm coming in and realized that there was no way Rose would be able to make landfall before it hit and there was nothing he could do about it. Even if he thought he could reach her and somehow bring them both back to shore before the storm hit, she was in the only boat.

All he could do was watch as Rose slowly drew closer and the storm quickly moved in.

The beam of light emanating from the place they called home cut through the gathering darkness and the falling water, intermittently illuminating his precious girl being tossed about by the wild waves and trying to guide her safely to shore.

He was frozen on the balcony, hands gripping the railing until his knuckles were white, leaning out that little bit too far like he hadn't felt the urge to in months, just trying to get a glimpse of Rose.

As the waves tossed her closer to the rocks, John could not stand it anymore. He raced down to the beach, heedless of the rain or the cold. All he could think of was Rose and how she had to be safe. She had survived this once and he needed her to survive it again.

Rose was clinging to the sides of the sides of her boat, desperately trying to focus on the lighthouse, on the shore, on anything but the looming rocks that had tried to claim her life once before. She was still no sailor, was still vulnerable to the vindictiveness of the sea, but this time she was going home. Running to something, someone, instead of away and that had to mean something.

Lightning flashed and she saw a figure on the shore and her heart jumped. _John_. She had to make it back to him. She had promised him she would come back, had promised him forever. This could not be their end.

In the next lightning flash, John watched helplessly as the boat was dashed against the rocks, splintering upon impact.

Desperately he searched every vicious wave as it crashed onto the sand, hoping that it carried his beloved with it. There had to be a chance at saving her. She was the only one who made it bearable to live with the blood on his hands and the scars on his heart.

That night on the beach a year ago he had thought the universe was finally being kind, thought it was giving him a chance to redeem himself by putting Rose in his life but it was apparently all a long, cruel trick—letting him taste happiness and love and then ripping it away.

This couldn't be happening. He needed her to be alive when she came ashore like she had the night they met. He needed _her_.

The beam from the lighthouse swept over the water as Rose was deposited on the sand. He rushed towards her and again tugged her away from the pull of the sea. She had promised her forever to him, not the dark waves, and he was not going to let them take her.

She wasn't breathing. In vain, he tried to act as her heart and lungs but she no matter how much he tried, how long he tried, her eyes never fluttered back open to meet his again.

There was blood on the side of her face, blood that ended up on his hands as he cradled her on the cold, wet beach in the middle of the storm, whispering the three words he had never managed to string together when she could hear him, brokenly reminding her that she had _promised_.

The storm raged on, uncaring of the broken man on the beach and a life cut much too short.

The lighthouse continued to shine its beam out into the darkness but the hope it represented had been extinguished.

John did not notice the tears that were streaming down his face, mixing with the rain as he pressed his lips into Rose's hair, rocking her lifeless body back and forth.

It was a storm that brought her to the island—a mere whim of waves and wind and fate—and it was a storm and the same waves and wind and fate that took her away.

 _.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-_

In the morning, when the sky was illuminated with the pink and gold that forcibly reminded him of Rose at her most gorgeous, John pressed one last kiss to her cheek and buried her in the sand on the beach where he had first seen her.

He did not try to stop the tears from falling as he said his last goodbyes to her.

 _.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-_

Within a few hours, another storm rolled in. John did not retreat to the lighthouse, instead he sat next to the sand he had formed into a mound and marked with a piece of driftwood he had scratched the name Rose into, blue eyes as wild as the storm that enveloped him.

The storm had reached its apex, winds whipping and waves towering when John thought he spotted a small boat heading straight for the rocks.

Unthinking, he waded out into the angry sea, desperate to save someone after he had failed to save Rose.

 _.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-_

The grocer's boy landed on the half-forgotten island a day later, come to bring them news of the trial Rose had testified in along with fresh food.

He found John's body washed up on the sand next to a grave marked with Rose's name.

Solemnly, he buried the lighthouse keeper next to his beloved and headed back to the mainland.

 _.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-_

The darkness continued to press closer to the island as days and years passed and the final resting places of the lighthouse keeper and his light were forgotten. Worn by waves and weather and time, the lighthouse continued to shine out a cold light into the darkness, warning sailors away instead of inviting them in.


End file.
